Paris Reidhead:

Two young Moravians heard of an island in the West Indies, where an atheist British owner had 2,000 to 3,000 slaves.  And the owner had said, “No preacher, no clergyman will ever stay on this island.  If he’s shipwrecked, we’ll keep him in a separate house until he has to leave but he’s never gonna talk to any of us about God.  I’m through with all that nonsense.

Three thousand slaves from the jungles of Africa brought to an island in the Atlantic and there to live and die without hearing of Christ.  Two young Moravians heard about it.  They sold themselves to the British planter then used the money they received from the sale, for he paid no more than he would for any slave, to pay their passage out to his island for he wouldn’t even transport them.

And as the ship left the river at Hamburg…left its pier at the river at Hamburg and was going out to the North Sea, carried with the tide.  The Moravians had come from Hermhut to see these two lads off, in their early twenties, never to return again.  For this wasn’t a four-year term, they’d sold themselves into lifetime of slavery.  Simply that as slaves they could be as Christians for these other were.

The families were there weeping for they knew they’d never see them again.  And they wondered why they’re going and questioned the wisdom of it.  And as the gap widened and the houses had been cast off and were being curled up there on the pier.  And the young boys saw the widening gap, one lad, with his arm linked through the arm of his fellow, raised his hand and shouted across the gap the last words that were heard from them.  They were these: “May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering”.  And this became the call of Moravian missions.  And this is the only reason for being, that the Lamb that was slain may receive the reward of His suffering.